Let’s go to the twenty-second century at the time when the first warp-capable ship, the Enterprise NX-01, started roaming the galaxy. Then suddenly an object appears in orbit above Earth central. What was it? Alien invaders? A monolithic metallic organism of amazing power and might? Long evolved ethereal beings whose purposes had yet to be identified? No, it was one of the most hideous sights that any sentient Terran would ever want to see on this side of the universe. It was an alien probe.

So what, you may be asking? Probes are small, harmless objects, what’s the big deal? Wrong. Earth-initiated probes are small, harmless objects and no big deal. Alien probes are digital representatives of the devil, sent out by evil insane aliens bent on galactic destruction.

The demonic spawn of Satan that appeared in Earth’s orbit that day took out half of Florida, Cuba and a chunk of Venezuela and then tapped the self-destruct button before we could investigate, find, and wring the life out of the aliens that sent it. And, yes, when the origin of this hideous mechanical beast was discovered, the aliens involved were clearly insane.

Look what the demonic spawn of Satan did.

This is a transcript of the Xindi’s reasons for killing seven million people. “We thought, maybe, in some distant future, you may, possibly, perhaps, potentially attempt to destroy us. So we struck, hit, bombarded, bombed, torpedoed and bamboozled you first. Maybe, in some way, we did, perhaps, the wrong thing. But if you were in our shoes, you would have done the same thing. Maybe.”

Now skip ahead a century to a probe that Captain “Kill-All-The-Bastards” Kirk encountered, a wonderfully colorful cube in a worthless region of space. It kept following them too cozily and its attention was radioactive. When it got too close, Kirk gave the kill-order and destroyed the mechanical Pepe Le Pew. But the owner of the digital rodent arrived, stating that the Enterprise had destroyed a “warning buoy.” Whether the threatening alien probe itself is destructive or not is irrelevant, you still have to deal with it as if it’s sent by a malevolent being.

The wonderfully colorful Pepe Le Pew cube.

Anyway, the commander of this pretty flagship with a pretty name, the Fesarius, started issuing orders, messing with the crew’s minds, and then issued a directive. “Get ready to die.” This order was issued by Balok, the not-so-pretty commander of the Fesarius. This was the first red flag. Pretty probe, pretty ship and ugly commander? Come on. Anyway, everything ended well when the real Balok (well, at least easier-on-the-eyes Balok) revealed himself because Kirk called his bluff. This potentially hazardous encounter was neutralized due to Kirk’s gambling habit.

But consider a few other spawns from hell. The Kataan probe, took over a captain’s mind making him relive the deaths of a planet’s inhabitants who fell victim to a supernova, leaving him scarred for life with their damned residual collective memories. The Jaradan probe that caused a defenseless holodeck to become lethal. The Cytherian probe that used that fool Lieutenant Reginald Barclay to bring the Enterprise D to its home world. Tan ru, the alien probe that mated with Nomad and drove him insane. The Iconian probe that spread germs from ship to ship. Borg….nough said.

Enterprise approaches Grandaddy of them all probe.

And, of course, the granddaddy of them all, V’ger, originally known as Voyager 6, yes, a harmless Earth probe caught in the grips of demonic alien technology. V’ger became the amalgamation of machines so evil they had the gall to form their own machine planet, presumably after destroying all the organic life forms who had a leash on them in eons past. After their machinery meddling, an innocent Earth probe became a metal behemoth that all other evil probes want to grow up to be. James T. Kirk summed up the aspirations of these mechanical demons, when he said of V’ger, “On its journey back, it amassed so much knowledge, it achieved consciousness itself. It became a living thing.”

In other words, the primary objective of this “living thing,” the most destructive probe ever to exist, was to self-actualize. Heck, not even most humanoids want to do that. Satanic sentience becomes a certainty when self-actualized artificial intelligence encased in indestructible alloy becomes capable of ingesting entire planets, and emits enough energy to destroy the same. And when this probe becomes so self-actualized it creates another probe to do its dirty work, where does the digitized, navel-gazing infinity mirror end?

V’ger’s cleaning lady.

V’ger’s probe turned out to be as psychotic as its creator, even displaying a nervous twitch called a death grip. This replica of the previously living Deltan, Illia, not only stuck to V’ger’s initial purpose of acting as a liaison between the Enterprise’s crew and V’ger, but acted as a means for V’ger to merge with them. A frightening proposition from such an enormous entity, but on the face of it, a much more sensible alternative than trying to help it out-humanoid humanoids (or exterminate them).

So the probe Illia figuratively mates with Humanity by sleeping with the human, Captain William Decker, who mourned and missed sleeping with the organic version of Illia, the Deltan. And, apparently, instead of producing the usual offspring through this process, V’ger “evolved” into a new living something-or-the-other (scientists never quite figured that out) and left the rest of Kirk’s crew the hell alone.

Don’t look! V’ger mating…I mean, evolving.

Therefore, until such a time as when V’ger wants to mate and evolve again, Earth and, possibly, other planets are safe from its opportunistic and invasive practices. Let humanoids throughout the galaxy look up to the skies and pray to their respective supreme beings that V’ger’s libidinous drives remain low. And if ever another probe appears in the skies above Earth again, for God’s sake get a Deltan.